Project Management ToolBox

Tools and Techniques for the Practicing Project Manager

Russ J. Martinelli, Dragan Z. Milosevic

• Publisher: Wiley
• Year: 2016
• ISBN:
  9781118973202
• Edition: 2
• Topic: Technology & Engineering
• Subtopic: Industrial Engineering
• Index: Technology & Engineering

Boost your performance with improved project management tactics

Project Management ToolBox: Tools and Techniques for the Practicing Project Manager, Second Edition offers a succinct explanation of when, where, and how to use project management resources to enhance your work. With updated content that reflects key advances in the project management field, including planning, implementation, control, cost, and scheduling, this revised text offers added material that covers relevant topics, such as agility, change management, governance, reporting, and risk management. This comprehensive resource provides a contemporary set of tools, explaining each tool's purpose and intention, development, customization and variations, and benefits and disadvantages. Additionally, examples, tips, and milestone checks guide you through the application of these tools, helping you practically apply the information you learn.

Effective project management can support a company in increasing market share, improving the quality of products, and enhancing customer service. With so many aspects of project management changing as the business world continues to evolve, it is critical that you stay up to date on the latest topics in this field.

• Explore emerging topics within the world of project management, keeping up to date on the latest, most relevant subject areas
• Leverage templates, exercises, and PowerPoint presentations to enhance your project management skills
• Discuss tips, reporting, implementation, documentation, and other essentials of the project management field
• Consider how project management fits into various industries, including technology, construction, healthcare, and product development

Project Management ToolBox: Tools and Techniques for the Practicing Project Manager, Second Edition is an essential resource for experienced project managers and project management students alike.

Part I

The PM Toolbox

Chapter 1
Introduction to the PM Toolbox

Conventional wisdom holds that project management (PM) tools are enabling devices that assist a project manager in reaching an objective or, more specifically, a project deliverable or outcome. While this traditional role of PM tools is more than meaningful, we believe that there is greater opportunity to provide value to an organization and its project managers. In particular, each PM tool can be part of a set of tools that makes up a project manager's PM Toolbox.

The PM Toolbox, then, serves a higher purpose: (1) to increase efficiency of the project players, (2) to provide the right information to support problem-solving and decision-making processes, and (3) to help establish and maintain alignment among business strategy, project strategy, and project execution outcomes.

Project management tools support the practices, methods, and various processes used to effectively manage a project.¹ They are enabling devices for the primary players on a project: the project manager, the specialists who make up the project team, the executive leadership team, and the governance body.

PM tools include procedures, techniques, and job aids by which a project deliverable is produced or project information is created. Similarly, A Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge and other sources use the phrase “tools and techniques” in place of what we define as PM tools.²

PM tools may be either qualitative or quantative in nature. To illustrate, consider two examples: the team charter and Monte Carlo analysis. They differ in the type of information they process. The team charter provides a systematic procedure to process qualitative information about authorizing a team to implement a project. Monte Carlo analysis is a risk-planning tool that uses an algorithm to quantify risks. The heart of both the qualitative and quantitative groups of tools—and all PM tools belong to one of these groups—is in their systematic procedure.

Note that we don't talk about software tools here. True, many PM tools that we discuss in this book exist in a software format. However, our focus is not on tool formats. Rather, we concentrate on the substance of PM tools: the use of tools to manage projects more effectively and efficiently.

The design of a PM Toolbox should mirror the approach an organization takes for establishing standardized project management methodologies and processes. A highly standardized set of methods and processes will in turn require an equally high level of standardization of the PM Toolbox. Less standardization introduces more variability in PM Toolbox design and use, and therefore more possibility for inconsistent results.

In practice, as organizations strive to grow and mature, project execution efficiency and repeatability become increasingly important as the leaders of the organization look for consistency in achieving business results. This means that project managers must be armed with the right tools—those that support the business strategy, project strategy, and project management methodologies and processes. It also means that the same tools should be used across the gamut of projects with limited exceptions.

Standardization of a firm's PM Toolbox does not happen overnight. Rather, it is an evolutionary process. In a practical sense, PM Toolboxes will look quite ad hoc at first. The tendency is to begin building the PM Toolbox with existing tools due to a project manager's familiarity with them. So the early-stage PM Toolbox has more to do with familiarity of use than with standardization. As a firm begins to mature its project management practices, standardization of methodologies and processes begins to take hold. This is when the PM Toolbox also begins to become more standardized, as well as more aligned with the project strategy and the business strategy of the firm.

Construction of a PM Toolbox should be systematically driven, meaning that PM tools are a vital part of an organization's overall project execution mechanism. However, project execution must first be aligned to company strategy to be most effective. When this is the case, the PM Toolbox becomes strategically aligned as well, as illustrated in Figure 1.1.

Figure 1.1 Strategically Aligned PM Toolbox

As illustrated by the downward arrow, business strategy drives the project strategy, which in turn drives methods and processes, which influences the PM Toolbox design. For this downward flow to wo...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Table of Contents
• Preface
• Acknowledgments
• Part I: The PM Toolbox
• Part II: Project Initiation Tools
• Part III: Project Planning Tools
• Part IV: Project Implementation Tools
• Part V: Project Reporting and Closure Tools
• Part VI: Risk and Stakeholder Management Tools
• Index
• End User License Agreement